While many (including me) have been covering the delays and issues that ATI has had over the last year while trying to ship the R520 , it now looks as though the chip will compete much better than originally perceived. With benchmarks showing the ATI X1800 series of chips outperforming the competition with the help of a new driver, ATI is gaining serious points with Graphics Geeks. Adding to all that, a recent report from The Inquirer now says that the R520 generation of chips are capable of addressing up to 1,024 MB of memory. Not only would that provide more memory than most games today can demand, but it also appears that the advanced memory controller can even support the next-generation high-performance GDDR4 memory standard With Quake 4 and Doom 3 benchmarks touting the X1800 XT as an ultra-competitive component, NVIDIA's wide performance margin has suddenly vanished. If ATI starts shipping graphics cards with 1 GB of GDDR4 memory and then CrossFire solutions with 2 GB of GDDR4 memory, NVIDIA may be in a bit of trouble. Then again, cheap Geeks like me will in all likelihood run from such offerings, keeping these high-end platforms in a niche, low-volume market. Nevertheless, long live the benchmark wars, which just got very interesting.

This is it. The new Radeon® X1800 Series hands you the visual and performance possibilities you only dreamed of from a PC graphics processor. It has been designed with a radically new ultra-threaded 3D architecture and Shader Model 3.0, unleashing the most mind-blowing gaming effects. What’s more, the X1800 introduces ATI’s revolutionary Avivo™, our new reference for video and display perfection.

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The Most Advanced 3D Performance Arsenal CrossFire™ : Multiply and Conquer with Multi-GPU Performance High Definition Image Quality with Avivo ATI’s Catalyst® Power and Control The Most Advanced 3D Performance ArsenalGet the ultimate gaming performance AND image quality with an advanced ultra-threaded 3D architecture, a ruthlessly efficient memory controller and Shader Model 3.0, all enabled by the most advanced 90 nanometer GPU process.

Radeon X1800 Series excels with Shader Model 3.0, HDR and adaptive anti-aliasing Radeon X1800 series’ 90-nanometer process technology and ultra-threaded architecture combine power and efficiency as well as support for Shader Model 3.0 to deliver new High Dynamic Range visual effects, enhanced realism with Adaptive Anti Aliasing and lightening fast performance in OpenGL and DirectX® 9 games.

CrossFire: Multiply and Conquer with Multi-GPU PerformanceDesigned from the ground up with GPU sharing in mind, the Radeon X1800 series allows you to get incredible gaming performance by adding a Radeon X1800 Crossfire Edition graphics card for ultra fast performance that works with all games, all the time.

Supertiling for optimized gaming performance CrossFire’s “supertiling” GPU sharing speeds rendering by evenly dividing the graphics processing, intelligently alternating the rendering workload to each Radeon GPU for efficient load balancing, and optimized performance.CrossFire boosts image quality CrossFire boosts image quality along with rendering speed, eliminating the need to crank down screen resolutions to get the high image quality you want.

Upgradeable components and web support CrossFire supports a wide range of ATI-based graphics cards and motherboards, and offers compatibility with a broad array of third party components for a flexible and robust solution.

Upgradeable components allow you to gradually improve your system performance with the reliability and support that only ATI delivers. Free monthly on-line Catalyst software updates, ATI’s one-click comprehensive help system, and web-based online customer support are available 24 hours per day.

Smooth Video Playback Free your CPU to devote more processing power to other applications with Avivo’s hardware accelerated processing of new HD video formats, including H.264. Transform your movies and improve every image sent to your display with hardware post processing for superb stutter-free viewing. Avivo gives your video playback the smooth, fluid motion you want from your HD content.

Universal Display Connectivity Certain ATI graphics cards with Avivo technology can dissolve connectivity barriers between PCs and consumer electronic devices. Outputs for virtually any TV via analog or digital interface, such as s-video, and DVI , are complemented by inputs for cable, broadcast TV and other video sources. And advanced dual-link DVI interfaces support the largest high-resolution LCD displays.

our previous feature on ATI's new Radeon X1000 architecture, we noted that ATI was actually launching an entire family of graphics cards, to be priced from $99 to $549. That feature focused on the performance of the Radeon X1800 XT and X1800 XL cards, the two highest performing and most expensive in the lineup. While October 5th was the day an impressively broad lineup was unveiled, ATI was only shipping two SKUs at the time: The X1800 XL and X1300 cards. The top dog X1800 XT is supposed to ship on November 5th and the mid-range X1600 cards don't go out the door until very late in November. Though ATI has always been up front about this, these paper launches only serve to frustrate potential buyers. It can be a bit confusing, too. Previews and reviews of cards were written weeks ago, but by the time you get your hands on them, newer drivers from ATI and competitive products from Nvidia could change the entire landscape, turning a "best of class" card into a bad deal.

As of the date of this writing, the only card you can actually buy is the X1800 XL. We have word from ATI that the X1300 cards have shipped to distributors some time ago, which should be appearing on the shelves and online stores any day now. With new drivers in hand, it's time to take a look at ATI's new low-end card.